Monastic Island of Reicheneau - UNESCO: World Heritage

Handbuch der deutschen Kunstdenkmäler / Reichenau - English Summary Add. 3
Georg Dehio, Handbuch der deutschen Kunstdenkmäler, Baden-Württemberg II,
München, Berlin 1997
Reichenau, Kr. Konstanz - English Summary
MITTELZELL
History of the abbey. No contemporary
information regarding the founding of the
Mittelzell monastery has survived; later
documents, however, agree on the decisive
part played by Karl Martell and local nobles.
Bishop Pirmin is said to have been introduced
by some of the leading Alemannic families
when he founded the monastery in 724.
Pirmin was probably from Meaux, and the
heritage he left suggests a connection with
the Iro-Frankish tradition. At first he
introduced a monastic rule which was a blend
of Columban and Benedictine elements; at
some stage this was replaced by the
Benedictine rule.
Pirmin’s choice of location for his first church
may have been determined by the nearness of
the Northern shore, and the availability of a
small spring. Quite soon, around 800, the
collegiate churches of St. Georg at Oberzell
and St. Peter and Paul at Niederzell were
added. A number of additional structures,
taken down during the early 19th century,
were erected as the island was approaching
its heyday: the palace of Otto III, erected in
995 to the south-west of the minster, which
included the older chapel of St. Pelagius, as
well as two Ottonic churches - the parish
church of St. Johann and the church of St.
Adalbert, the altar of which was consecrated
by Pope Leo IX in 1049.
Under the rule of a series of distinguished
abbots the monastery developed into one of
the major political and cultural centres of the
Ottonic and Carolingian empires. The first of
these, Abbot Waldo (786-806) and his
successor Heito I (806-823, died 836), were
councillors of Charlemagne; in 806 the
emperor made Waldo abbot of St. Denis, the
empire’s most important monastery. In 811
Heito went to Byzantium as an imperial
ambassador, bringing back ideas for his new
project, the Minster of Our Lady. Abbot
Walafrid Strabo (838-849), an eminent poet
and scholar, spent the years between 829 and
842 at the Imperial court, where he served as
tutor to the young emperor-to-be Charles the
Bald. His Visio Wettini contains the earliest
literary reference to the island of Reichenau.
An idea of the size and importance of the
monastic library can be gained from an
incomplete catalogue compiled in 821 by
Abbot Heito’s librarian and scribe, Reginbert;
it listed at least 415 volumes. Heito was also
responsible for the setting down of the famous
Plan of St. Gall, the only architectural plan
surviving from the early Middle Ages. The
new monastery at St. Gall did not adhere to it
in every respect; it is, however, an invaluable
commentary on the earlier architecture of
Reichenau, and a vivid document of that era’s
monastic thinking and living.
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